AWS Lambda For Beginners

Introduction to AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda is a compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. Instead, Lambda runs your code on a high-availability compute infrastructure and performs all of the administration of the compute resources, including server and operating system maintenance, capacity provisioning and automatic scaling, code monitoring, and logging. As a result, you can run code for virtually any application or back-end service with Lambda. All you need to do is supply your code in one of the languages that Lambda supports.

AWS Lambda supports the following languages for now:

• Java
• Python
• C#
• js
• Go
• PowerShell
• Ruby

How does AWS Lambda work?

Developers can start using AWS Lambda services by coding directly in Lambda’s code editor, mentioning the conditions that trigger the code, or directly uploading the code.

The code executed on Lambda run time environment is called a Lambda Function.

First of all, you need to create a function and add basic information, such as which programming language to use.

Then you need to decide whether you want to write the code directly or upload the code in the supported programming language in a zip file.

Once the code is uploaded, the service will handle all the patching, capacity scaling, and administration.

The code runs when the trigger invokes the lambda function. Thus, we need to trigger the lambda function with an external AWS service. Ex. S3 bucket

Now, Lambda is ready to trigger your function automatically when an event occurs. It will run the code when the trigger event is called and manage and monitor the servers for you.

Creating your first Lambda Function

Go to AWS console and search for Lambda

Select Lambda and then click on create a function

Now, you have many options. I will go with Author from scratch

Enter the function name and select Python 3.9 which you want to use for this function

Fill in the details as required and click on create the function

Now your function is created

You can write your code or can copy-paste the following code

Use the test button on the top to test your code after deploying it

Create the test as follows

Click on Save and then Test.

Go to the execution tab and see the result

Now you have your first AWS Lambda code executed.

Conclusion

Lambda is FaaS(Function-as-a-service) by AWS. It also provides a runtime API that helps run functions written in other (native) programming languages. It is a serverless, event-driven compute platform that operates whenever an event occurs. It is auto-scalable, efficiently uses resources, and is managed by AWS.

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